Qualcomm lambasts Apple for breaching company deals

US Chip-maker Qualcomm has accused Apple of breaching deals between two companies and harming its business.

Chip-maker Qualcomm has accused iPhone-maker Apple of breaching a deal between two companies. (Reuters file photo)

US chip manufacturer Qualcomm has lambasted Apple in a court for breaching deals between the two companies and urged that the lawsuit filed in January against them by iPhone maker should be rejected.

Qualcomm has also accused Apple of harming its business and sought unspecified damages.

"We have negotiated hundreds of bilateral license agreements over the last two plus decades. And those have clearly established a clear market value for the tens of thousand, now of patents that we hold in the whole area of cell technology," a report in Fortune quoted a Qualcomm executive as saying on Monday.

Apple sued Qualcomm in January for nearly $1 billion over royalties, with Cupertino-based tech giant alleging the wireless chipmaker did not give fair licensing terms for its processor technology.

But Qualcomm refuted the allegations, saying that Apple had intentionally mischaracterised the agreements and negotiations, as well as the enormity and value of the technology they had invented, contributed and shared with all mobile device makers "through our licensing programme".

Regulators in South Korea issued a nearly $1 billion fine against Qualcomm in a similar case.

"Apple's lawsuit goes to the heart of Qualcomm's licensing model, which charges phone makers a percentage of the value of every phone, not just a cut of the price of specific modem chips used in phones," the report noted.

The threat is worrying for the investors in Qualcomm as the company's share price has lost 12 per cent since the day before Apple filed suit.

"Our chips had capabilities that Apple chose not to use in the iPhone 7, in my belief, because they wanted to basically employ a lowest common denominator approach. Intel's modem chip could not do, did not have the capabilities that our chips had," a Qualcomm spokesperson said.